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DuPont’s Decades-Long Deception

The long article below tells the story of one lawyer’s 16-year battle against protracted, unrepentant wrongdoing at chemical giant DuPont. It’s an amazing tale, one that literally affects every one of us, since studies have indicated that every one of us has DuPont’s toxic industrial chemical, called PFOA, in our blood. It raises lots of questions. In particular, just what is the psychology of loyalty that lets so many employees at a company like DuPont take part in what they must know is wrongdoing? >>>

[Lawyer, Rob] Bilott doesn’t regret fighting DuPont for the last 16 years, nor for letting [industrial chemical] PFOA consume his career. But he is still angry. ‘‘The thought that DuPont could get away with this for this long,’’ Bilott says, his tone landing halfway between wonder and rage, ‘‘that they could keep making a profit off it, then get the agreement of the governmental agencies to slowly phase it out, only to replace it with an alternative with unknown human effects — we told the agencies about this in 2001, and they’ve essentially done nothing. That’s 14 years of this stuff continuing to be used, continuing to be in the drinking water all over the country. DuPont just quietly switches over to the next substance. And in the meantime, they fight everyone who has been injured by it.’’….

What do you think?

p.s., this is the kind of long-form journalism that makes old-fashioned newspapers seem really, really relevant.